I'm aware of one instance where a cougar was killed with a butter knife.

You can say that again.

You might be willing to suffer a slash or broken bone to subdue your own relative. I am not.

Then, obviously you should stay home - rather than take up a profession that might require you to do so.

I've had bones broken in assaults, gotten black eyes, had my glasses broken, even had a tooth knocked out. It's kind of what happens in some places when the sun goes down. Perhaps I should have just stayed home and locked the door at night, rather than been on the streets.

You won't see "suffer a slash or broken bone" in the police job description. That's because they arent subjects of medical experiments. They are usually allowed to shoot those that attack them with knives, just so that does not happen.

Of course if the police stayed home instead of responding to the "my demented son is attacking" calls, most wouldn't bother to pay them.

You won't see "suffer a slash or broken bone" in the police job description.

Well, you don't see: "Get tangled in fishing gear, and get drowned when you're thrown overboard" in the job description of a fisherman.

You don't see "Die screaming in a plane wreck" for a pilot.

You don't see: "Get crushed by a log or falling tree" in the job description of a lumberman.

You don't see: "Get gunned down by some punk in a dark doorway when deliving a pizza" for pizza delivery driver.

etc.

Some things just come with the territory, and you know what you are signing up for.

Of course if the police stayed home instead of responding to the "my demented son is attacking" calls, most wouldn't bother to pay them.

Hard to imagine the mother thinking that the police earned their pay that day. I think in retrospect she might have preferred they did stay home.

Cops used to be the toughest people on the block. A good friend of mine on the PD is the toughest person I know, and he's legendary for bringing down some pretty mean out-of-control people in very difficult circumstances. He's a polite, funny, easy-going guy, but gosh, he's got military training and knows self-defense, boy, is he tough when he has to be. He's an expert on firearms, on shooting, and knows how to use guns, and also knows when NOT to use them. I'll read in the papers about his exploits from time to time.

Now just because someone WANTS to be a cop, we have to allow them to be one, even though they may not have the physical qualification necessary to "maintain peace" without blasting away at everything that moves.

Hard to imagine the mother thinking that the police earned their pay that day. I think in retrospect she might have preferred they did stay home.

An excellent point. Just because a parent would take a bullet or cut for his / her violent, defective "loved one", doesn't mean that ANY stranger would. People who wish to be caretakers for their emotionally unstable, violent family members should take the necessary steps to not have to call strangers into the picture.

They run the risk that strangers will act to prevent harm to themselves based on reasonable beliefs about the "loved ones". Such parents / spouses are a lot like the pit bull owners who cannot control their dogs.

On Thursday, officers kicked open the door to the apartment, on the second floor of a three-story house. The first officer inside was Richard Haste, 30, who has been on the force for three years, according to people with knowledge of the case. He told Mr. Graham to show his hands and then yelled, “Gun! Gun!” before firing,

It will be instructive to hear what Patricia Hartley has to say -- as well as hear the tapes. By the way, there is a far more awful (and better documented) example of NYPD holding a witness aganst his will.

Sikos' sworn statement contradicted the video evidence, suggesting Cortes rammed officers and squealed his tires in an effort to escape.

"The internal affairs report really did not investigate the true root causes of why this happened," Paul said. "They are supposed to be a check-and-balance on the police, and rather than check and balance, they basically rubber stamp a lot of things that happened."

A veteran Prince George’s police officer who claimed he fired at a 19-year-old man Friday in Brentwood after the man tried to grab the officer’s gun has been suspended after video surveillance conflicted with the officer’s story, police said Monday evening

Moments later he got back out of the car and police told him to drop a gun, Rodriguez said. The man showed the officers that he was not holding a gun but a cell phone, Rodriguez said. A barrage of shots followed and can then be heard on the video. Rodriguez said the man fell to the ground after the shots were fired.

According to [the] eyewitness the officer was talking to Cook in her Jeep, when she began to roll up the window and pull away. The witness said the officer’s arm was in the window as Cook was rolling it up.

I'm wondering why you believe it is permissible to drag police officers once you've successfully trapped their arm in a car? Of course, that MIGHT not have happened, but an investigation would need to 'explain away' this:

*****************************************************************
According to eyewitness Kris Buchele, . . . the officer was talking to Cook in her Jeep, when she began to roll up the window and pull away. The witness said the officer’s arm was in the window as Cook was rolling it up.

Merciful of him to try to get her to stop verbally, first. Bad of her not to do so. Still, there are some unanswered questions. I'm going to wait for the investigation to see if his arm was caught and he got it free, or if he was just holding on to shoot her. The CIVILIAN EYEWITNESS certainly supports the former -- but the press has gotten it very wrong before. I'm not about to accept their word as gospel even if it sees logical and consistent with the officer's action.

1. If a suspect panics, and tries to escape STAND IN FRONT OF HIS CAR. That way, you can blast away at him if he moves, even if he is tryingh to steer around you.

2. If a motorist is confrontational, and seems to want to drive away - STICK YOUR ARM IN THE CAR WINDOW. That was, if she tries to drive away, you can say you were assaulted, and blast away. If she tries to roll the window up - that's even better. Then you can shoot until the gun is empty.

I'm speculating he was perhaps trying to grab the keys, rather than whack the daffy decedent HARD in the temporal area, or pepper spray her directly into the eyes and nose, either of which also would have prevented her escape. I do not yet know, however, because that is pure speculation (based on being involved in several such cases).

I do not believe that trying to grab the keys is as forseeably deadly as dragging a person with a car. Just ask Shawn Berry. The issue of justification depends on what the cop forsees is about to be done to him, without justification. What the dead driver is actually thinking is both unknowable, and irrelevant.

Despite the above, I'm thinking an investigation is needed to examine a few remaining questions.

You might find it instructive to google "Charal Thomas". Add the word "convicted". Apparently, this fairly old case has already been submitted to a GRAND JURY. Result? CLEARED !!!!!!! (?) !!!

You'll also find out that Charal Thomas had already been convicted for drug dealing previously -- more than once. He'd already generated several WARRANTS for his arrest. Where you have an outstanding warrant, arrest is not discretionary. When the officer asked him to get out of the car, he wouldn't, and locked the doors. When the officer reached in to unlock the door, Skeezbag excon, badly-attempted-murderer-in-front-of-his-OWN-kids Thomas didn't JUST start to drive away. He FIRST rolled the window up, trapping the officer's arm. Skeezbag was willing to kill a police officer IN FRONT OF HIS OWN KIDS so he wouldn't be followed and arrested, which is what would have happened if he'd JUST driven away. By the way, he was driving around with his kids while on cocaine (per possibly erroneous reports about the autopsy report).

Shaheed remains critical of Officer Romer's actions, but says some fellow ministers are apparently swayed by the video evidence."

So the grand jury saw the video -- and cleared the officer. That isn't just some internal investigation.

PS: I probably would not (knowing what I THINK I know from the frequently halfa$$ed reporting) have shot.

On the other hand, what I THINK I know about the number of shots taken and hits achieved is inconsistent with what is reported by the news. According to the reports, the guy was shot TWELVE TIMES !! To do so through the side of a moving vehicle is almost impossible unless the shooter is right up against the vehicle. If I was being dragged by a drug dealer who wouldn't stop or let me go, and I was right up against the car, I might take THAT shot, especially if the vehicle had not gotten up to speed yet.

So here we have:

A badguy convict drug dealer
(who had already lost a leg in a NON-police shooting at age 11)
With another wanted felon in the front seat, passenger side
With MULTIPLE warrants for his arrest,
Who decided that it would be a good idea to take his kids WITH him that evening
. . . And drag a police officer to death (in front of his kids) rather than be arrested
And "dragging the officer" was captured on video
Which was shown to the grand jury
That "no billed" the case.

The officer was close enough to shoot and hit the coke-addled badguy TWELVE TIMES, without hitting anybody else. Was he shooting, as he said, from the running board? Would shooting thru the window shatter the window, thereby releasing his arm, freeing him? These seem plausible and likely.

As another commentator noted, if the officer had NOT shot, the kids might well have listened to the media "death watch" as Texas fast-tracked dad to death row for killing a cop. In the alternative, given dad's clear thinking, the kids might have been killed in a rollover event during the getaway, along with the cop and all occupants.

State police say Cook rolled up the window, catching the officer's arm inside, and then dragged him.

Buchele says it didn't happen that way. He describes an encounter which looked and sounded like the officer shooting a person a point blank range, not because he feared for his life, but because the woman did not obey his order to stop rolling up the window.

The vehicle is approached by an officer who pulls his gun, kicks the driver side door and yells “Don’t move!” What the officer doesn’t know is that the reason Greene was swerving was because he was going into diabetic shock. Nevertheless, the officers proceeded to deliver a shocking beatdown.

One of the officers can be heard yelling for Greene to stop resisting but it is clear that Greene is doing nothing but taking kicks in the face.

So far, we have one report that Buchelle said one thing, and another report that he said something different. Is one reporter incompetent? The other? Did Buchelle say two different things? All of those things are why it is a waste of time to rely on the news media to determine what really happened.

Stop and take a look at your posts. You asked why he (the police officer) "have his arm in the window in the first place". The latest Buchelle quotes make that issue irrelevant -- if you rely on the latest report. However, both the reports cannot be true. I do not believe you are misquoting anybody. I believe that it is the job of the press to sell papers, and not to accurately report what happened. If they focused too hard on that, they might miss a deadline.

Three months ago, White Plains Police responded to a medical alert call that the 68-year-old had accidentally pressed while sleeping.

... audio and video is raising serious questions about the police version of events...

"Did I see anything that would warrant their action, not at all. My father, when the door was busted down was eight to 10 feet away from them with hands down to his side," Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr. said.

A bunch of shootings the last few days - this one in particular is shaping up to be an interesting case:

Loggins' commanding officer at California's Camp Pendleton publicly rebuked civilian authorities in neighboring Orange County for their handling of the investigation into the fatal Feb. 7 shooting by a deputy of the highly esteemed Marine.

Camp Pendleton's commanding officer said he is displeased with the "incorrect and deeply hurtful" comments made about a Marine sergeant who was fatally shot by an Orange County sheriff's deputy in a dark high school parking lot.

This is an update of the story of the fellow who went outside to see what the commotion was outside his hopuse one night - the police were chasing someone through his neighborhood. They mistook him for the suspect, and took him down - adding a black eye to the insult for "resisting arrest."

Of course there was an investigation. We should wait for the investigation.

Wait for it.... wait for it...

Here it is!

Following a month-long investigation, police officials said Friday they found no evidence of police brutality surrounding the January apprehension of a Minerva Drive man.

The victim in ths case needed medical attention for a heart condition, but instead he found himself being subdued by four officers.

Since he was in the middle of a seizure, he couldn't control his limbs -- and that led to a tragic misunderstanding that was hard to overcome. The more he appeared to resist, the more police tried to restrain

"Why, if Paul LePage was there, he'd have gotten a few kicks, in as well! "Accused" is as good as guilty, as far as LePage is concerned!"
You are, Mr Tom entitled to your opinion and 1st amendment allows you to state your opinion. You do understand that your credibility and your reputation are based on your expression of your opinions.
This statement by you...."if Paul LePage was there, he'd have gotten a few kicks, in as well"..is extremely derogatory. You have convinced us here on AMG that you actually believe that Paul LePage would have kicked another person, one who was in distress, and acting in a strange manner. Knowing Pauls personal history, having sat across the table from him in discussions....I have to say your personal views no longer have any value to this reader.

... there was one juicy twist: The whole altercation was caught on tape under the most outlandish of circumstances.

The recording catches Stasnek cursing out Mait (although the officer later denied it), giving no advance warning that Mait was about to be cuffed for resisting arrest (although the officer testified that she had done so three times), and later hashing out a plan with her fellow officer to make sure their stories jibed (they did).